Can't empty trash.. item still in use

[Aussie]

There is an item that will not go away. Trash says it is in use but it isn't. It is not important to the computer. When buying an item online i clicked to read the terms and conditions, the page did not load properly, i can't remember what happened after that but at some point this (2 sentence)opened page ended up as a file/disk on my computer. It has only 2 sentences on it. In an effort to solve it i have verified disk permissions, i have ownership to read and write, i have emptied the cache and tried to force trash it. nothing works. It doesn't show up as an item in disk utility so i can't erase it there. I don't know a lot about this but i have tried to do all that seems obvious or anything that books might help with. Mac Help is no help on this occasion. Can you help please?

 

[Kaveman]

Hold down the Option Key and Empty the Trash.
Doing a restart will also clear this.

 

[Aussie]

Thanks for replying. Have just tried Option key/empty trash still didn't work. Got to leave for work shortly will try restart later on. i was trying to avoid it as i wanted to know why this happened and the correct way to fix it. Over night i had a thought, each time i tried to empty, the internet was connected so have now tried without connection but still no joy.

 

[Kaveman]

All it is is the Busy bit is set on the file, used to happen a lot in Panther, less so in Tiger, unusual in Leopard.

Open Terminal in Utilities and type rm space then drag and drop the file onto the terminal window.

rm /Some/Path/To/A/File.busy

press return.

 

[Aussie]

Ok. i will have a go at that when i have time to concentrate. Very interesting explanation. i did read about rm in my books and thought it might apply but didn't want to venture into more trouble.Also realised i forgot to tell you i have Tiger on eMac but run it from an iMac keyboard cos it is smaller. I presume the keyboard doesn't make any difference? i will let you know how it goes or if i need a bit more help. Thanks. Susan.

 

[Aussie]

I pay (almost) undying homage Kaveman. Just completed the action and its gone off into cyber space. Thank you. Much more satisfying than Restart.